The present invention relates to the recordal, by a trusted party, of spoken passages exchanged between multiple parties; in particular, but not exclusively the present invention relates to a service for recording oral contracts made by telephone.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,041,104 describes a method for ordering a telecommunication service in which an intelligent peripheral plays a xe2x80x9cterms and conditionsxe2x80x9d message to an individual requesting the service, and recognizes and records a verbal response from a user in a database record in order to form a contract.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a straight-forward way of having a trusted party record an oral agreement made over the telephone and, more generally to have a trusted party record any form of spoken passage exchanged between multiple parties.
In one aspect disclosed herein, a method for memorializing a conversation between multiple parties comprises at the start of, or during the course of, voice communication between the parties over a communications infrastructure, routing voice streams from each party to a recordal service, which thereupon makes a recording of the voice streams, provides each party with at least the opportunity to review the recording, asks each party to independently indicate their individual acceptance of the recording, and provides a reference copy of the recording as a copy accepted by all parties only if all parties have indicated their individual acceptance to the recordal service.
In another aspect disclosed herein, a system for recording a conversation between multiple parties comprises a communications interface for receiving voice streams from each party, recording means for making a recording of the voice streams, and control means for commencing and terminating the recording, for asking each party to individually indicate acceptance of the recording made by providing each party with at least the opportunity to review the recording, and for making a reference copy of the recording available to the parties only when each party has individually indicated acceptance.